10. | Infatuation pt. 2
Trust in me, I'll hold you up.
Be the light inside your heart.
Help you dance within the dark.
- Dylan, 'Nineteen'
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Noelle was avoiding a lot of people.
She was avoiding Jimin's curious questions since Saturday night, even going as far as to avoid the persistent boy in school on Monday and seenzoning all his messages.
She was also avoiding Kim Taehyung.
Well, it seemed like both of them were avoiding each other because unlike Jimin, who had been very vocal about his inquisitiveness regarding what was going on between Noelle and a certain tattooed boy, Kim Taehyung had been eerily quiet, not even sparing her a look during the uncomfortable car ride back to their houses from the club.
Noelle had known both the boys since childhood. They contrasted each other yet their personalities still blended so well together, but maybe that is why the boys were best friends.
While Jimin was someone who didn't shy away from anything, an outgoing extrovert who could never control his curiosity or his nosy nature, Taehyung was an ambivert- a mixture of Noelle's quiet and Jimin's loud self.
Noelle knew that Taehyung seldom wore his heart on his sleeve. Not quite like her or Jimin, he brought some much-needed balance to the trio and their friendship which spanned over years.
She also knew that while understanding and patient unlike Jimin, the reason why Taehyung had been avoiding her would only be revealed to her if and when he deemed it fit to be so Noelle decided to brush the matter aside for the time being.
Then there was Jeon Jungkook.
That Monday, she knew she had to face him in school. There was no escaping the fact that she had kissed him back and voluntarily sought him out after that, making her friends along with everyone else present at the club's entrance witness their mini-argument and then Jungkook pecking her lips.
Noelle hence was avoiding him at all costs.
It seemed like she was always avoiding the boy these days.
Yet something made her cross paths with him, almost like her inner self (which was rebelling against her rational part by acting out and letting her thoughts be consumed by a certain chocolate-eyed boy) was unconsciously leading her feet to him and completely disregarding her internal pleas.
Like now.
It was lunchtime and while all other students in her class had probably already scurried off to the cafeteria lest all the good food ran out, Noelle was one of the last ones to leave the class, mostly because her usual lunch table partners were two out of the three people she was avoiding.
The pale grey corridors of Seobeom were where she encountered Jungkook for the first time since the night at the club.
Noelle had fought the urge to stray her gaze to his seat in the classroom all day and no matter how tempting it was to look at the doe eyed boy, she internally chanted a mantra that she would not succumb to the tantalizing temptation.
His citrusy scent infiltrated her nostrils as she passed him. One earphone was dangling off his ear, she noticed from the corner of her eyes before castigating herself for having unintentionally looked.
"Noelle?"
For the first time since they had met, he said her name aloud. He never called her by her name.
It made her stop and turn towards him, the way his lips rolled as he uttered her name making her heart beat accelerate at dangerous levels.
Her resolve to keep avoiding the doe eyed boy melted like butter on a hot summer day the moment she met his gaze.
She cursed in her mind, cursed her heart for betraying her like it loved to, cursed the boy for having such an effect on her. But,
"Yeah?" She asked, hating how the pitch of her voice increased slightly with nerves and those damn butterflies as she faced him.
He was wearing his usual dark clothes, silver hoops shining and reflecting the sunlight filtering in from the large windows in the corridors. He still hadn't bought a uniform, it seemed- everyone had given up on him buying one, even the teachers.
Noelle was a bit surprised at the fact because Seobeom High was known for being quite strict with it's rules and regulations.
A slight crease was formed over Jungkook's forehead in the shape of a frown, eyes swimming with something Noelle could only best describe as hesitancy and a hint of bashfulness- although she didn't quite peg him to feel the latter emotion.
This surprised her even more, that little bit of vulnerable shyness in his expression which accidentally slipped past his usual facade.
He rolled his lips, wetting them slightly with a hint of his tongue peeking from inside, his mole under the lower lip demanding attention from her as he did the action.
She liked that mole, a lot in fact. Embarrassingly, it wasn't just Jungkook's eyes that would star in her dreams especially since their kiss.
It seemed as if he was deliberating on what to say next. A pregnant pause between the two elapsed wherein their eyes, even though trying to look anywhere but into each other's orbs would finally end up yielding in to do just what they were avoiding.
He cleared his throat and tried to speak up again,
"Are you going to the cafeteria?" He ended up asking her, making her arch her eyebrows.
"Yes, it's lunch break right now so..." She trailed off, kicking her leg slightly with chagrin of squeaking those words in the most awkward manner possible.
"Oh yes." He scratched the back of his neck, rolling his lips together yet again, making Noelle's eyes zoom in on the pair which were quite softer-than-they-looked, lips which had been on hers.
She shook her head slightly, dispelling the onslaught of memories of her lips brushing against his oh-so perfectly, like they belonged, brushing away the memories of her looping her hands through his neck, his mouth peppering kisses along her jaw...
"Aren't you going to the cafeteria?" Noelle asked, focusing on the earphones dangling on his pierced ears rather than those treacherously alluring eyes or his lips.
He shook his head at her, and when she titled hers in return to ask him to elaborate it seemed as if the corners of his mouth slightly tilted upwards in a barely there wry grin, which disappeared all too suddenly.
"Don't like the noise." He shrugged.
It was true, Noelle herself didn't quite like the din and chatter that always surrounded her own lunch table because of the fact that two of her friends were social butterflies who everyone wanted to befriend but she would unfailingly sit with her childhood friends because it was familiar.
Though Noelle didn't quite mind solitude, she liked the fact that sitting between the two and listening to them talk along with inputting a few wry comments here and there was as familiar to her as her home.
Jimin and Taehyung were familiar. Yet, she was avoiding them.
Jungkook wasn't familiar. Heck, he was the opposite. And quite dangerous for her heart too, those eyes of his.
But when those eyes asked her to follow him without him even saying anything, Noelle found her steps heading the direction his own feet were headed in.
Infatuation is defined as being smitten by someone, a state of unreasonably being drawn to someone so passionately that it takes your breath away and maybe that could best describe what the two were feeling for each other.
Not quite love, yet a deep yearning for each other, an undeniable attraction which could only be pegged as infatuation.
Once, when she was in her eighth grade, Noelle had looked up the word 'infatuation' in her dictionary for it's exact definition after she read a romance novel written by one of her favorite YA Romance authors.
It was a foreign word, and not only because it was an English word but because she had never experienced the emotion of liking someone so strongly. Even a year later, her first kiss to be precise- when she kissed someone she never thought she would and decided that she would never talk about or think about again, she never quite felt those 'butterflies' she had read about.
However, a certain boy named Jungkook seemed to have changed that for her. As she followed him, she realized that they were headed to the school rooftop, an area which was forbidden to students.
Still, she didn't say anything, and this might've surprised even Jungkook because she knew he saw her as a goody two shoes and well, she wasn't going to deny that she wasn't one because yes, she was.
But she figured that breaking the rooftop rule wouldn't be such a big deal because she knew that it wasn't really a regulation per se, just an unspoken a rule, mostly due to the fact that years ago, she had heard that a student had attempted suicide there.
After all, Seobeom High was a prestigious institution of knowledge which couldn't afford to tarnish it's reputation so to avoid any further incidents of such sorts, all students were advised not to go there.
Hence Noelle followed him as he picked the lock to the rooftop door, overlooking the fact that he knew how to pick a lock in seconds. It was obviously a skill which had been honed over the years.
She instead focused on how he opened the door for her, stepping out first to extend his hand to her, she focused on how the callouses in his warm palm heated up her inside, she focused on how she was holding his hand for the first time, with her fingers tightly clutching his.
If this wasn't infatuation, Noelle didn't know what was.
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Jungkook felt strange.
He had never felt such a rush in his veins as he did which his hand was in hers. It was a strangely warm feeling, her pale and small hand in his own big long fingered one as he led her out into his favorite place in his new school.
He came her often, sometimes when he craved for a smoke or two or sometimes just to let his thoughts wander. He also came here during the lunch breaks because as he had told her, he absolutely hated the din of the cafeteria, especially the part of girls batting eyelashes at him childishly.
He never quite liked women younger than him. His type wasn't high school girls who pretended to be cute but actual women who knew what they were doing.
Yet these days he was feeling as if a certain Lee Noelle was making him rethink his choices. And he didn't mind at all.
Jungkook himself didn't know why he called her name out in the corridor earlier, or why he asked her to follow him without actually saying the words aloud. He also didn't know why she did, seeing as he hadn't exactly been the politest around her, or even towards her.
Maybe the night at the club changed things for them, a small hope blossomed inside his chest before he squashed it because if there was one thing Jeon Jungkook knew, it was that the bullshit of 'Hope anchors the soul' was just that, fucking bullshit being fed to people to make them delude themselves into thinking that the concept existed when it so clearly didn't in this world.
Still, Jungkook had been feeling pretty restless for these past few days, after Noelle and his confrontation on him reading her diary. He had even trimmed his long strands even though they still were shaggy and longer than deemed by the school dress code.
Even after kissing her, after being intoxicated with the feeling of her lips on his that eventful night at the club, that restlessness didn't quite go away. He felt obligated to clear the air between them, something he had never felt so strongly ever before because he was never the one to chase girls.
Jungkook was a bit rough around the edges if one wanted to describe him a bit more eloquently, but he wasn't so foolish as to not know that it had been wrong of him to read her personal journal, temptation which made him still read be damned.
"You come up her every lunch break?"
Noelle's breathy voice broke the chain of his thoughts, making the frown he never realized which had etched on his forehead slightly ebb away.
The duo stood in the middle of the rooftop. The edge was cemented and high, (presumably to avoid any accidents) and many pots and plants littered the area, even a few small trees, making the concrete building's rooftop seem like some sort of a pseudo garden area, a greenhouse if you may.
"Yes." He nodded, letting her take in the place.
The sun which shone down on them highlighted her inky curls which were bound in a ponytail, the ends brushing just past the middle of her back. Her hazel eyes shone too, the bright afternoon sunlight making the flecks in them visible.
The slight breeze in the air made the weather slightly cool, winters were on track to arrive after all. It was one of those in-between months between autumn and winter, which was also Jungkook's favorite type of weather.
"I've never been up here before." She mused, "It's nice here though. Lots of plants."
Jungkook nodded.
"Never pegged you to be one of those introspective brooders who hang out at rooftops." Noelle's cherry lips curled upwards in a grin as her eyes sought his. Somehow, her lips were a natural cherry color, even though she never applied any tint.
Jungkook remembered they tasted as sweet as the red colored fruit too.
He suddenly found himself blurting an embarrassing apology as he stared at her, something which he had been agonizing over for the past few weeks,
"I...I shouldn't have read your diary. It wasn't my intention to um...breach your privacy?"
He shuffled on his feet as the last part sounded like a question. Jungkook had always found it hard to articulate his thoughts and feelings into words.
Heck, he had never apologized before in his life, not that he remembered. Well, he did have a hazy memory of mumbling a 'sorry' to his late grandmother when he fought with one of his kindergarten classmates but that was pretty much about it.
Sheepishly, for the first time in ages that emotion flooding his expression, he saw Noelle's bite her lower lip, understanding filling her eyes with warmth.
"Oh that..." She trailed off, looking away for a few minutes, making anxiousness settle in the pit of his stomach.
"It's okay." She breathed out the words after a few seconds of silence, her eyes not quite returning back to meet his gaze but staring at his chin as she said the words; surprising him because he hadn't exactly uttered 'sorry' and hadn't quite expected her to say that.
"Really?" Jungkook frowned it confusion. He had always been a grudge holder, so it astonished him, Lee Noelle forgiving him when just a few weeks ago she had lost her cool.
Elegantly poised and the best student of Seobeom High she may be, Jungkook had seen those strong and passionate flashes behind the mask even she didn't know she had donned over the years.
Yet now she was nodding slowing, eyes terribly trying to hide an emotion he best interpreted was polite softness.
"I mean," She spoke up, her voice a sounding like a breathless whisper, just a few decibels shy of not being heard by his ears, "I mean, to be honest, I was very angry when I saw that you were the one that had it all along."
The way her tone got high pitched as she said 'you' made Jungkook's face fall slightly before he schooled in his expression as she continued, sighing out loud,
"It's just a very personal thing, my diary that is. I felt very anxious when I lost it because I pour all my feelings in it, by scrawling them in the form of rants. The prospect of anyone reading it is..."
She bit her lip again as she trailed off, but Jungkook knew what she was trying to say, what her worried eyes were trying to convey.
"It's like I'm baring my soul to the one who reads it. They would see the part of me even I don't know I have kept hidden and bottled up inside me. It's my escape from reality."
Her hazel eyes said those words and more.
And Jeon Jungkook knew, because he used to do just that with the guitar he had a few years back in Busan. He knew the feeling of how his fingers plucking the stringed instrument while his other hand strummed made him escape reality after he gave up seeking solace from the paint and canvases when his grandmother died.
He had sold it now though, just before leaving for Seoul. The brown tan colored wooden acoustic guitar, with one side of it's neck having a scratch from the time a very young Jungkook had tried to lift it and dropped it; something which was one of the few things left behind his late parents.
"You have a way with words. I could feel your emotions through those pages." Jungkook tried to change he topic, "Your poems are a masterpiece."
"Really?" Red tinted the side of her neck before she shook her head sheepishly,
"How would you know? You sleep during our Literature classes."
Noelle chuckled under her breath, the sound making Jungkook wish he could hear it on repeat.
"Yes, but I can sure tell that they are good."
He shrugged, not denying the fact that he indeed, slept through most of his classes. A pearly laugh escaped her lips, her eyes scrunching slightly as she chuckled.
"What about you? What do you keep listening to?" Noelle pointed at the earphones dangling around his neck.
"Usually hip hop. Alternative punk works too." He shrugged.
"What's your favorite?" She wondered curiously.
Jungkook felt something stir in his chest.
The sun painting her ebony locks a shiny onyx, hazel eyes and those cherry lips, Jungkook never thought he had seen anyone look this pretty before.
His hand itched to capture this moment on canvas for the first time since forever, for the first time his resolve faltered after giving up on art years ago.
"What?" She raised her eyebrows, having caught him staring at her.
Jungkook simply stepped closer to her, making her eyes slightly widen.
He was schooling in his expression but his heart was beating erratically.
"What?" Noelle repeated when just an arm's length separated them.
Just then, the spell was broken when her stomach grumbled slightly, reminding the duo that it was lunchtime and thus their bodies needed food.
Noelle blushed once again in chagrin and embarrassment, making Jungkook's face break into a full grin for the first time in a long time.
He fished out a bar of chocolate from his jeans pocket as the boy always had a bar or three with him for chocolates were an indulgence he enjoyed the most.
It was his go-to snack.
The action made surprise flash on her face, as she had not pegged Jeon Jungkook who everyone in Seobeom High was so intimidated to offer her a bar of Mars.
Noelle shook her head, declining it.
"I don't like sweets. Chocolates in particular." She confessed.
"What?!"
It was Jungkook whose eyes widened this time, as he looked at her nod a yes that she didn't like chocolates.
"I don't have a sweet tooth."
This was hard for Jungkook to understand. He couldn't fanthom how anyone could not like chocolates.
"There's so much we don't know about each other. The bad boy of Seobeom carriers bars of chocolate in his pockets?" Noelle mumbled to herself with a giggle but he heard her.
"Hey!" Jungkook rolled his lips together to stop the rebellious curve of his own lips.
"How can someone not like chocolate?" He asked in disbelief.
"I just do." She shrugged.
If it was anyone else this would have been a deal-breaker for him but it was her. It was Lee Noelle and Jungkook decided to overlook the fact that she didn't have a sweet tooth like he did when he looked at her with those wide hazel eyes framed by thick lashes and that heart-shaped face framed by stray curls
"You sure you don't want a bite?" Jungkook asked her, opened the bar, and took a bite himself.
"No." She shook her head, yet Jungkook could hear her stomach grumble again.
"You should eat this though." He furrowed his brows as he grabbed her hand to place the bar of chocolate.
"It's ok, I'm not that hungry-"
Jungkook cut her off by placing his finger on her lips and taking back the chocolate to take a bite again.
"I-" She tried to speak when he retracted his finger only to be cut off once again when Jungkook crashed his lips on hers, his tongue parting her surprised lips easily.
The chocolate melted between the heat of their mouths, as Jungkook tilted and angled his head to deepen the kiss, one of his arms snaking around her waist to pull her closer while the other still held the half eaten Mars bar.
Noelle's astonishment melted slowly, just like the chocolate his tongue pushed into her mouth.
One of her hands clutched his shirt, fisting against the dark fabric as her lips melted into his, her tongue tentatively tasting the sweetness.
Jungkook pulled away for a bit, touching their foreheads, her long lashes fluttering and brushing against his cheek.
"See, chocolates aren't that bad." He felt his lips pull up in a crooked smirk as he closed his eyes too, pulling her even more closer even though their bodies were flush against each other.
"Maybe." She conceded as a breathless whisper.
The two talked about everything and anything that afternoon, sharing a bar of chocolate and the sun shining down on them, potted plants and flowers a witness to the blossoming feelings inside their infatuated hearts.
Jungkook's hand sought hers, his index finger tracing invisible circles on her palm as they talked, deciding to sit down near the potted plants.
He felt at peace, even though he had never quite realized the true meaning of that word before.
His heart felt like a raging storm from the proximity, their legs touching each other as he heard Noelle ramble about something passionately, yet he still felt at peace for some reason.
He wanted to kiss her again, yet they were talking properly for the first time and he could help but hear her and answer her and be intrigued by the way words escaped those cherry lips which had a smudge of chocolate left from a few minutes ago.
Jeon Jungkook didn't like talking to anyone. While he loved the feeling of kissing her, he was still half astonished at himself for sitting there during their lunch break and even telling Lee Noelle about the one place he went to in the school whenever he sought solitude.
Lee Noelle was making him question seeking solitude when he could sit beside her and hear her, when his thumb could wipe away the chocolate stain left on the side of her mouth, making her freeze midsentence, wide hazel eyes gaze up at him with soft infatuation in their depths that mirrored.
Jungkook knew it was an infatuation that wasn't going away anytime soon.
The sweetness of chocolates tasted better on her lips anyways.
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A/N
Dear lovely readers,
First of all, sorry for this very much procrastinated late update. Please blame my writer's block and also the fact that I have begun my college life. *squeals I excitement*
Thoughts on the chapter? A little spoiler for y'all- a surprise for y'all awaits you in the next update in the form of...
Haha not going to tell you that easily, you'll all know in due time ;)
Anyways, hope you liked the chapter! Comment your feedback!
Also, forgive any errors or typos because I drafted this while traveling.
P.S. - What's your favorite song sung by Jk? Mine is Still With Me.
Love,
Milli
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